During Mardi Gras season, we spoke with several touring acts that stopped in Mobile. Regional band Surfer Blood performed at the recently opened Merry Widow on Jan. 22, 2016. Here is our Q&A with the Florida band about its experience in the Azalea City.
A New Downtown Venue
The Merry Widow impressed the band as “a intimate room that sounds surprisingly punchy.” They watched the parade from the upstairs balcony and collected thousands of beads by night’s end, even recognizing faces from a show at the Alabama Music Box five years earlier.
On Recording and Performing
Surfer Blood’s album 1000 Palms had generated positive buzz, but the band sees recording as its own reward. “The greatest reward of all is seeing people sing along to your songs when you come to their town on tour,” a member said. Playing roughly a hundred shows a year, they keep a few song endings open to improvisation so each night differs; one fan compared them to the Grateful Dead.
Southern Roots and the Road
The band toured relentlessly in its early days, often playing to empty rooms in a beat-up van. “I do not know if we would have ever gotten noticed if we had not taken a leap of faith,” they said. Crowds in Georgia, Alabama and Florida tend to be a little rowdier than elsewhere, which the band has always enjoyed.